Category: News

On Tuesday 17th January the Williamson Art Gallery opened its doors to students, parents, teachers and the public for the ‘Young Artists in Cheshire’ Exhibition. Our year 13 student Ellena Hudson was successful in securing a place on the prestegious residential and now has a selection of her work on display at the gallery.

Young Artists in Tuscany’ has been a highly successful sixth-form project since 1984, with coverage in the past on both Italian and English television and exhibitions of the work in London, Florence and Montreal. Many students have used this experience to gain places at prestigious art colleges across the country and this year’s ‘Young Artists in Tuscany’ promises to build on these achievements.

Students drawn from Wirral, Cheshire West, Cheshire East, Warrington, Halton and Manchester undertake an interview process and successful candidates receive the unique opportunity to study and work in Tuscany, probably the most loved region of all Italy. Over a period of 8 days practical work runs alongside organised visits to see some of the great works of the Italian Renaissance. Visits to Sansepolcro, Arezzo, Siena and Florence reveal the world’s finest masterpieces by Giotto, Piero della Francesca, Raphael, Duccio, Benozzo Gozzoli and others, some housed in the art galleries, others in beautiful churches and cathedrals.

Having prepared for the visit in advance, the 42 students drew and recorded personal responses to the Renaissance works of art in their own sketchbooks. This helped to hone their skills of critical appraisal and added to their knowledge and understanding of the theory and practice of art. Once home they developed their ideas further through a range of mediums and produced a final piece for the exhibition.

The work exhibited was of exceptional quality and we are all very proud of Elle for her artistic achievements.

The official government league tables for 2016 were published this week and confirm what a strong set of results we achieved in the summer. In fact, on the key new headline measures being used by government to judge schools, we are the top performing school or college in Warrington for both GCSE and A Level.

This is especially pleasing given that the new measures focus on the progress students make rather than simply raw exam scores.

Our intake is well above average in terms of academic performance at primary level and so we should always do well in measures of raw attainment (such as the numbers of students getting 5 A*-C grades including English and Maths). However, the progress measures published today show that our students have made excellent progress even taking into account their high starting points.

Our progress score of 0.20 at A Level is especially strong and demonstrates that A Level students made tremendous progress compared to similar students in other providers nationally. The official data puts us in the top 16% of all A Level providers in the country – and a long way above any other nearby school or college. Similarly, at GCSE, our positive “Progress 8” score of 0.08 is the highest in Warrington and shows that our students have made more progress than would be expected nationally, taking into account their starting points.

We are confident results will continue to rise. At the same time, this is certainly a moment to step back and celebrate some excellent results and reflect on how far we have come over the last couple of years.

On Monday, we held a Mock GCSE Results Day for Year 11, where students received an envelope containing their results from their December Mock exams.

Congratulations to all students who achieved their target grade in any of their subjects – a great position to be in at this stage and we have even raised some targets as a result. The overall picture looks positive although, as ever, there is a lot to play for over the next few months.

All students should be attending any revision sessions that are on offer to them. Some of these are targeted at certain students; others are ‘open invite’ or ‘drop-in’ – these will go onto the school website in the ‘Parent Communication’ section in a couple of weeks’ time.

Students should also have created their own revision timetable by now (a template will be on the parent communication pages) and scheduled what revision they are going to do on each day, along with any other commitments they may have.

Whilst it’s important that students continue with sport and social activities to maintain a balance, for many students these should be tailing off now as we begin the run in to exams.

As a general recommendation, students should be completing around two hours of homework/revision per night, with slightly more at the weekend.

If you have any concerns about your child’s progress please contact your child’s subject teacher; for any general concerns please contact

We beat Cooper’s Company Coborn 16-0 last week to reach the semi-finals of the Under 15s NatWest Schools Plate Competition. Throughout the game, we gave a professional performance in testing conditions.

The first half of the match saw Lymm control the majority of the ball, with the game plan against our opponents being to ‘bore them to death’ and we were able to prevent Coopers Company Coburn from scoring.

During the second half Lymm were able to stay long enough in the opposition half to gain some kickable penalties. Student Alex Galloway then came off the bench and proceeded to score a 50m try, allowing Mr Pickles to try to claim the credit for a great substitution.